I. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to communication, and more specifically to techniques for transmitting data in a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system.
II. Background
In a wireless communication system, a transmitter may utilize multiple (T) transmit antennas for data transmission to a receiver equipped with multiple (R) receive antennas. The multiple transmit and receive antennas form a MIMO channel that may be used to increase throughput and/or improve reliability. For example, the transmitter may transmit up to T data streams simultaneously from the T transmit antennas to improve throughput. Alternatively, the transmitter may transmit a single data stream from all T transmit antennas to improve reception by the receiver.
Good performance (e.g., high throughput) may be achieved by transmitting data on the eigenmodes of the MIMO channel. The eigenmodes may be viewed as orthogonal spatial channels. To transmit data on the eigenmodes, the transmitter obtains a transmit steering matrix, which is derived based on a MIMO channel response matrix, and performs spatial processing with the transmit steering matrix.
The system may have multiple subcarriers that may be used for data transmission. To transmit data on the eigenmodes of each of the subcarriers, the transmitter may obtain a transmit steering matrix for each subcarrier and perform spatial processing for that subcarrier with the transmit steering matrix. However, deriving the transmit steering matrix for each subcarrier may require significant computational resources at the transmitter and/or receiver. Furthermore, a significant amount of radio resources may be needed to send the transmit steering matrices, or pilot signals used to derive the transmit steering matrices, from the receiver to the transmitter.
There is therefore a need in the art for techniques to transmit data with less computation and feedback overhead.